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State Bank of India (SBI) on Monday petitioned the Supreme Court for an extension until June 30, 2024, to provide information on electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The current deadline set by the court is March 6.
On February 15, the apex court ordered SBI to stop issuing electoral bonds immediately, and share the names of the purchasers, the value of the bonds, and their recipients with the ECI by March 6. The poll body was then asked to disclose these details by March 13.
SBI, in its application, noted that the court directed it to share details of the electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, to February 15, 2024, with the ECI. "In that time period, 22,217 electoral bonds were used for making donations to various political parties. Redeemed bonds were deposited to Mumbai main branch by the authorised branches at the end of each phase in sealed envelopes. Coupled with the fact that two different information silos existed, this would mean that a total of 44,434 information sets would have to be decoded, compiled, and compared,” the application said.
SBI argued that the three-week timeline set by the court in its February 15, 2024, judgment would not be sufficient to complete the entire exercise. “Therefore, an extension of time may kindly be granted by this court in order to enable the SBI to comply with the judgment,” SBI said.
SBI also noted that due to the strict measures taken to ensure the anonymity of the donors, “decoding” the electoral bonds and matching the donors to the donations made would be a complex process.
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It further highlighted that according to the Gazette Notification dated January 2, 2018, which established the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018, it was categorically provided under Clause 7 (4) that “the information furnished by the buyer shall be treated confidential by the authorised bank and shall not be disclosed to any authority for any purpose, except when demanded by a competent court or upon registration of a criminal case by any law enforcement agency.”.
On February 15, a five-judge Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, unanimously ruled that the electoral bonds scheme and preceding amendments to the Representation of People Act, Companies Act, and the Income Tax Act violated voters’ right to information about political funding under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
It said that “State Bank of India shall furnish the details of donations through electoral bonds and the details of the political parties which received the contributions.”
The bank was directed to submit the details to the ECI in three weeks (until March 6, 2024), which would then be published by the poll body on its website by March 13, 2024. The Supreme Court gave its verdict on pleas challenging the validity of the electoral bonds scheme.
